Better With Chocolate
by Gaylord Poehlschmoker
Summary: Another of Count Chocula's spells has been cast incorrectly, and he refuses to clean up his mess. Maybe if he kept up with his dark arts assignments, he would have covered something appropriate with chocolate instead.


**_Better with Chocolate: Confessions of a Fruity Ghost_**

**_by Gaylord Poehlschmoker_**

**_October 2010_**

Hundreds of bow-ties of various make and color, five hand-made Navajo Bolo's, an interlocking Pierre Cardin (vintage!), a '37 Paris World's Fair Souvenir necktie, and even a deep orange ascot from when I fooled around with Fred Jones in the early 1970's...

All covered in Chocolate.

Obviously, another of Choca's spells had been cast incorrectly. Maybe if he kept up with his dark arts assignments, he would have covered something appropriate with chocolate instead.

It was the day after most of my mid-terms - October 13th, I believe. It was a Friday, and the majority of the surrounding dormitories were quiet from the other students attending parties at the chateaus that dotted the brim of the nearby lake. From my broken window I saw their lights ripple on the water, stirred by the wind that traveled down the side of the university's northern mountain face. Ancient dirt roads crossed the slopes, and disappeared into the lonely old-growth forests that surrounded the neighboring hamlet. There were many lines of thick fir trees that stood between me and the chateaus yonder; tree lines reinforced with the strength of my own reservations.

My sleeping quarters were warm and comfy - albeit dusty - and several arachnids hung from the dozens of webs dispersed throughout the room. They each had a name and personality, and were all generally good - even though it felt as if there were eight times as many of them when they stared at you. I had been so focused on studying that night it wasn't an issue. Instead of me they were watching Algernon, my black cat of three-hundred and ninety-seven years, as he crept through the fog that collected in the room's corners.

The entry door opened, and what sounded like a thousand bats scattered from the minor belfry outside. The latch clanged as the door fell back onto its frame. When the ringing subsided, there was nothing but the crackle of the fireplace and the tick-tock of the clock. I turned to face my adversary. It was "Count" Chocula, or as I as his other intimates referred to him, "Choca".

He was surprised to find me awake, and that the chocolate mess of men's formal wear had not yet been properly addressed with a rag and bucket of water. The cuckoo clock struck three times. A long moment of silence passed over the disaster scene of his boyish mischief as he sought my reaction. I returned my eyes to the homework stacked on my desk.

"Don't use a spell to clean that up tonight," I commanded, tying my sentence up quickly and tucking it away with an embarrassed rush. It was difficult for me to be hard on him sometimes. He smiled, I could hear it in his voice.

"Fine, I won't clean it up," he retorted, his soft lips caressing his buck teeth with the sensuous attention of a drunkard. I smelled it and everyone else all over him.

With a swift turn, he immediately began to undress, starting with a yank of his belt and the sidelong toss of his beetle boots. I secretly glanced over my shoulder at the display. He smirked as he peeled his shirt off and playfully dropped it beside Algernon, startling the old cat. I quickly turned back again before he could catch me. I couldn't look him in the eyes. _It's a distraction_, I told myself. _Stay on him._

"If you use a spell, you'll probably fuck it up even worse."

My heart skipped a beat. He had already skewed my vocabulary – damn. The jig was up. I turned to face him again. His eyes danced with my use of French verbs. Everything to him was a window into a world of erotic intrigue, and he was the type of physical lover whose hungers were never sated. He rolled his head around, cracking his neck before resting his vacant eyes on me. He licked his lips in a genuinely unintentionally-sexy manner.

"You read my mind, Boo. There's always the old-fashioned way."

Standing between me and the fireplace, his twin-minaret of a coif caught the glow of the dying embers and the flicker of every Candelabra in the room. The flames outlined his arms and shoulders and reached around his sides. Fingers of light caressed his naturally-fit physique. My own features had been called "pretty" and "fair" by many male and female apparitions alike, but Choca had what could best be described as _perfect_ shapes. He could take off his clothes and get almost anything he wanted... from most people, anyway.

"How was the party?" I asked hesitantly, wanting my words to cut through the stew of sexual tension that had so quickly been brewed. Suddenly placed between a rock and a hard place, I found myself biting my tongue at whatever tales of dramatic exploits my quick-fix conversational device invited.

"Good. I think I'm just going to go to bed." He answered curtly, turning away.

My eyes almost rolled back into my head out of pure frustration.

"Damn it, Choca. You can't get away with everything, especially with me."

He spun around aggressively, and with a sigh claimed the antique mahogany chair beside my desk. He rested his head on his arms with a pout; his eyes chasing me until I made him my full attention. _You can't get away with everything_. He realized the timbre of the conversation was evolving into something richer than he had been prepared for. His eyes formed a pair of discrete and surprisingly articulate apologies.

I sighed as well, realizing that after only thirty-seven words, I had already humiliated myself enough to evoke his pity on me. That word again, _pity_. I always associated his affection for me with pity, even though I considered myself deserving of what I perceived to be my own healthy degree of self-esteem. Did he stir these feelings in me himself, or did he simply highlight the issues that I'd always denied?

"I'm too tired to clean all that up," he moaned as he reached for my tail.

"...but not too tired to fuck?" I asked, smacking his hand away.

"You're on fire tonight, Boo."

"I'm a little pissed right now, if you haven't noticed."

"Here, let me kiss it and make it better," he said with exaggerated duck face. I leaned back with a spinning guffaw in my chair.

"I don't want to be just another victim of yours, Choca!" I confessed with an air of mockery. I felt my eyes unexpectedly seizing on my internal affairs: _just now, did I mock myself or my opponent? _He leaned in close.

"I made you my victim aeons ago," Choca said, setting his slender fingers to traipse down my chest. His tired voice had the dark, solemn grit of a horse-hair bow.

I knew it was true. I was a good boy until he corrupted me. His fingertips were icy cold, littered with the essences of many good little boys like me. _How many tonight though? _That always seemed to be the question. _How many boys did he kiss tonight, before he came home and dragged me around like this?_

He loved nothing more than to think himself a player, while I fancied myself a stoic prize pony. I'd gracefully trot around his advances, rarely falling prey to them without calculated consent. Still, he had recently developed such profound charisma - omnipotence, even. Immortal and omnipotent? Maybe it was foolish for me to have considered denying him after all.

I was still lost in thought when Choca plundered my mouth with his. With a swoop, I felt his right hand map the short white hair I kept modestly hidden under my bright yellow boater. His left hand drifted further south, landing gracefully on my abdomen. After a quick swim, I probed his tongue thoroughly, searching desperately for some secret passageway or treasure to blackmail him with.

I began to wonder if his tongue had also been the casualty of his chocolate spelling error. He used it so indiscriminately as to make one think his sense of sight had been replaced by his sense of taste, and that the entire world were a dessert bar prepared solely for his party of one. Any boy he could capture surely tasted like chocolate to him - at least that's what the word in the hall seemed to affirm.

"_Count Chocula": apropos._ Choca knew nothing about indulgence, despite it being the backbone that formed his increasingly indolent lifestyle. He stuffed himself with food, liquor, and lovers until he was sick, and made his own life an indulgence for other immortals. This was a secret shame for him, as with the years that passed he no longer could distinguish between being a player and being played. His fatigue was evident in the hangover-like languor his lips had adopted. _He couldn't keep his lips shut._ That, I believe, is why more often I became the object of his desires, just like in the olden days. However many spells had failed or boys he'd sampled, my mouth was more often again becoming his present bacchanal, and I couldn't escape my frustrations.

"Stop it." I said, after an indefinite interval. I was so lost in thought I'd almost forgotten that I 'd lended my tongue and lips to him. Choca remained static as I pulled away. He'd experienced this enough times to know to hold his expression and not to react in any significant way. He pulled his face together covertly as he fumbled for words. Alcohol rid him of many things, among them his once-nuanced articulations.

_Everyone says strawberry goes better with chocolate_. 'Strawberry and chocolate, strawberry and chocolate.' I heard it whispered behind my back every day. Of course, they were referring to the oh-so-popular Frankie B, whose up-bringers had given the unfortunate name of "Frankenberry". I couldn't bring myself to interview Chocula on the subject. The frustration of Frankenberry instead manifested in the corners of my lips.

"You don't need to breathe," he cooly responded, with a return of sensation to his face.

"I've just got a lot on my mind."

"I'm trying to help you."

"No, you're not. You can't. There are too many things I want."

"I know exactly what you want."

"I'm not going to waste my time, Choca." I stated with a little more theatricality than I'd intended. Choca's slanted eyes magnified the disapproval of his burgeoning frown. My patience had been worn to the hilt. A baker's dozen of seconds passed before I relaxed my glare and lowered my head in a vague apology. What accommodations could I expect him to make? I didn't even know what I wanted myself. My thoughts returned to Frankie.

An all-star athlete, Frankenberry had the pick of any ghoul or ghoulette that tickled his fancy organ. He was tall, robust, and could easily appeal to a wide number of fantasies. Consequently, he had long been the target of gossip, given his mysterious roots. Rumor has it he had been originally created in secret by the government to fulfill the First Lady's request for a pseudo-sentient sex toy. He was promptly sent to the dump by the prime minister when the wrong letter graced his desk. She didn't even get a test ride.

Other equally-dubious rumors included the story that he had been assembled from the bodies of dead gay porn stars, and the tale that at some point in his adolescence as a mortal boy, he tumbled headlong into a vat of distilled radioactive robot sex appeal.

The one thing that was sure to be true though, was that he always had a soft spot for the smooth-operating Choca. They fooled around several times before, but Choca vowed long ago to keep his focus on me after having reassessed his priorities.

Since him and I grew apart in the last semester however, the state of our relationship had become muddled, and tensions loomed. They culminated the week before when a group vacation had been organized to tour several European hot springs over winter break. After Chocula agreed to go, Frankenberry joined on as well. Respecting prior engagements to my family in Wales, I politely declined. The night they began to collect travel expenses, I wondered, _Does Choca know I know about Frankie accompanying him?_ I honestly felt that they were better suited for each other, but that didn't make me behave any less selfishly.

Getting back to the night of the 13th, however, Choca knew that whatever it was that was bothering me wouldn't be brought up. He knew I was angry - at schoolwork, at the other students, at the teachers, and, for reasons unknown, him as well. He knew my face well enough to trace the lines that concealed my horniness, and utilized my frustration for mutual sexual gain. He had slowly become acquainted with my own self-interest and no longer beat around the various bushes. When he was drunk he had no tact either, but I already mentioned that.

"Fine, let's proceed to the main course," he slurred just as what must have been a whole other bottle of beer tucked away in his gut somewhere began seeping into his brain.

_'Fine' - who or what is 'fine' about this situation? Am I fine? Is Frankie fine? Are you arrogant enough to call yourself fine, in front of me? Of course he would be._ I entertained myself with satire to balance the purely extrinsic stimulation occurring at the base of my neck, which had suddenly been made bare by Choca's hands. Before he dropped the bow, his mouth made a brief feast of my neck. His forgotten arm drifted aimlessly through the air with my neck tie. I grabbed his wrist to remind him that he was in fact holding something.

"Just throw it in with the others in that chocolate mudslide on my dresser."

Choca's laugh whistled a little through those special teeth of his. Those big, awkward buck teeth. The teeth that were mine for tonight, the teeth I wanted to dig into every inch of my obfuscated skin. He slipped back after letting the tie slip from his hand.

Discarding his pants, I found myself slobbering like a booby. He was not yet completely nude; his finest delicacies were wrapped carefully in his last-remaining article of undergarment. He knew exactly what kind of fit to buy that drove me and the other boys crazy, and I can assure you with confidence that even though Choca may not have been one hundred percent alive, he was certainly one hundred percent man.

He drifted near. I felt a subtle draft breach the crown of my head as he removed my hat. I shivered like a nubile love-maker because of the cold, but it wasn't long before Choca moved in closer to press his warm body against mine. My defenses were entirely gone.

Fondling arguably began on the chaise lounge with the black poppy print. But I honestly don't remember this part too clearly. My mind was too focused at that moment on his flagrant disregard for my complex emotions. _Surely he knew I knew about Frankie and was unhappy with it - why didn't he pull out? Did he think I was stupid enough not to have put two and two together? Did he think it was acceptable to me for us to be playing this kind of game?_ Maybe it was a ruse to win me back. _No._ I told myself I wouldn't make it all about me anymore. I was too much of a recluse to think that histrionically.

The truth was that our final semester at magic school was drawing to a close, and soon he and I would be parting ways. Maybe he would be happy chasing after Nordic types when he went to work in rural Transylvania. Maybe he would pursue Frankie with the same lustful imagination and misguided fervor I chased Choca with myself. Maybe he'd one day track me down and make me his slave again.

The speculations had fizzled out by three-thirty. By then, my thoughts were completely clouded with sweet carnal indulgences. Maybe my own brain had absorbed some of Choca's liquor through his skin, or perhaps I'd made myself drunk off of his attention. However the phenomenon of intoxication was achieved, I was only sober enough to know for certain that this would be the last time with him. I just wished I was cunning enough to have used that revelation to fuel the heat of the encounter rather than to deduct from it.

He eventually took my hand and escaped with me into my room, where the final ritual began. Lips still locked, his slender arm reached around me and pushed the door closed. It shut slowly, resounding with the same hollow groan of as that of a young man in his sexual afterglow.

_Tonight, I have him, but tomorrow I'll be on my own..._

On the other side, Algernon licked his paws. The room glowed beneath the door, and was reflected solemnly on the mess of dress ties - still dripping with that decadent chocolate.

**Author's Note: This story was written as a Halloween gift to my friends at my university's Gay-Straight Alliance. I was sick this weekend and couldn't hang out too much, so I wrote this to make up for it (and to help pass the time while I recuperated). This was the first piece of true prose I've written in at least 3-4 years, as well as being my first legitimate piece of erotic writing, and my first **foray** into parody/comedy fiction. My writing style is highly indulgent from reading and writing so much poetry and lyrics, but I intended it to be. Maybe I've read too much Edith Wharton. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. =)**


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